I had a really strange experience at Beijing Daxing International Airport recently.
I usually follow a consistent routine, arriving about 90 minutes before a short-haul flight. On this trip, I was flying with China Southern from Beijing to Shanghai. Everything went smoothly: I checked in quickly, passed security without delays, and reached the gate about an hour before departure.
Normally, that would be more than enough time, but when I got there, the display already showed the gate as closed even though the scheduled departure time was still over an hour away.
I spoke with the staff (in Mandarin), but they insisted boarding had already finished, most passengers were on board, and pre-flight procedures had begun, so I wasn’t allowed to enter.
I ended up buying a new ticket for the next flight, which luckily departed about an hour later. What made it more frustrating was that when I checked the original flight status later, it actually departed only about 6 minutes before the scheduled time meaning the aircraft was still at the gate long after I had been denied boarding.
I travel frequently and have never experienced something like this before. Has anyone else encountered such an early gate closure?
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